Thomas Davie

I'll try to explain. I've only scratched the surface with the game, but will now happily dig deeper now that I know reaiity is being modeled. By 'internal' I meant that the data is there, but not neccessarily visible to the player. I hoped it was there, but I was just unable to see it. I can be a bit more effusive with my praise now; I've played CMBO, CMBB and CMAK for quite a while. And although the depth of content is not there (comprehensive OOB's, random scenario generator, battle creator); the game is (we plot/we go', 3d, turn playback). And it's playable on a sub $1000, hand held consumer electronics device. I'm not counting laptops, notebooks or netbooks. For someone who has been wargaming for 40+ years this is a game changer. Might as well put my one wish in here. I don't expect it, but would gladly pay more $ to get these features; 1) random scenario generator. Actually, that's it. Tom

Thanks for releasing this game. I suspect you know that you could have charged more (and people would gladly have paid extra, including myself). The fact that campaigns might be coming is nice. Here's the question; are their 'internal' weapons penetration .vs. range tables for each weapon? I'm almost afraid to ask because I fear a 'no' answer. Really nice to have a portable, high quality wargame. Thanks Tom

P4 @ 2.4 ghz w/512 mb ram - ran great AMD 2400+ laptop w/512 mb ram - ran great P3 @ 600 w/128 mb ram - kinda lags a little Celeron 466 w/576 mb ram - ran great Celeron 400 w/256 mb ram - ran ok Tom

It is indeed me. The same person who used to post on other forums about getting sick when playing 3d games; although I always used to post under my own name, and never under any others. It is nice to be able to play the game, but as you can imagine, I've got a lot of catching up to do. My assumption is going to be that if I can play CMBO, CMBB will also not be a problem for me, nor CMAK as well! Refresh rate? Well, flickering sometimes caused me nausea even if I wasn't playing a 3d game so you might have something there. The lcd screens seem....softer to me, but I know that that is not a very explanative statement. 3d glasses I'm not even going near there! PBEM, ah yes....only been playing Warlords 3:DLR recently, plus some West Front tcp/ip. Once I become comfortable losing in CMBO, I'll quite happily lose to some of you. Tom

In case anyone cares (hell, even if they don't), I'd been following CM since it was announced as an Avalon Hill affiliation back in 97, and then never bothered buying the game since some aspect of it's 3d implmentation always made me violently ill. Wouldn't matter if I played it on a 15 inch, 17 inch or bigger monitor, the end result was always the same....SPLAT! So, periodically I would download the demo and find the same results, consequently forgetting about the game for another 5 or 6 months. Anyways, half a year ago, I bought another computer with an 18" lcd monitor, but never tried CM on it for some reason. About a month ago, I copied the demo over to my laptop and tried it on there. Hmmmmm....this doesn't make me sick. So I fired it up on my comp w/flat panel. Same result; not sick. So I quickly tried the demo after switching in a CRT monitor. Instant nausea. Who knows why....shrug. So I found a copy of CM at a local EB Game here in my city and bought/installed it on my comp with the lcd. No sickness. YAY! AFter over 3 years I CAN PLAY this. Now, a request for help. I'm familar with the game, having read these boards fairly frequently and some fan sites. What's the best way to get into this game as quick as possible. The easy way is..... and the hard way is.... I'm open to suggestions, and any advice. thanks Tom (as an aside, I was dealing with a 19 inch CRT monitor, 0.26 dot pitch, 100 Hz refresh; the lcd monitor is 0.29 dot pitch unknown refresh rate....so why the hell do I get sick playing 3d games on a CRT monitor, but not on lcd?????) [ September 07, 2003, 08:30 PM: Message edited by: Thomas Davie ]

Stephen; that is bull****. I'm not one of the cool guys, sycophants or class clowns, and yet despite what I perceive as a slightly abrasive attitude on Captain Manieri's part (so what, I'm an abrasive asshole too), I take him seriously. So, where does that leave your theory huh? Regards Tom

For those who like to stay in reasonable familarity with current events, here are a few good URL's regarding the war in Chechnya; 1) http://www.amina.com/images/grozny.html Pictures of the capital Grozny before the current war 2) http://www.russiatoday.com A very good site giving topical information on Russian politics and military affairs. A 'semi' official site, and slanted pro Soviet 3) http://www.kavkaz.org/ A Chechen web site giving topical information on the war, purportedly sent out via satellite phone. Very slanted pro Chechen. You've have to drill down to the English link, unless you have Russian language packsinstalled on your system. 4)http://www.fotograaf.com/wessel/westet.htm A web site by a Dutch photographer. Gives pictures from Grozny as recent as December 12th/99 I thought it interesting because of the diametrically opposite viewpoints that both sides are putting out. According to the Chechens, the Russians have used chemical weapons and vacumn bombs(????). If you believe the Russians, the Chechens torture prisoners. Tom

Lee; I had 128 Mb before I went to 256. Windows 2000 was pretty snappy (compared to Windows 98) on 128 Mb, but I kept maxing out my virtual memory on big spreadsheets. With 256 there's no comparison. It was $237 Cdn for 128 Mb (eh, so that's about $161 US). You play Starfleet Command eh? Drop me an email (I lost yours when I switched to Win2K), and we'll have a game with unmodfied ships? Tom

Lee; don't skimp on the ram. I recently went to 256 Mb, thinking that I'd migrate it over to a new machine in August, but I've seen such a speed boost that I'll put that much ram in the new machine as well. And frankly for me, the ram is a good investment whereas a souped up video card is a waste (actually was a waste), and ditto for the monitor save for working on large spreadsheets or in Word. My 2 Cdn cents. Tom

Gee, if people want better graphics, then I want hexes. And come to think of it, if people want real time, then I want an exclusive 2d top down representation. My first, and last comment re: better graphics....it's a wargame, not a bloody beauty salon. Tom

Two games (although the first doesn't work under Windows 2000); the Steel Panthers series, and West Front. Tom

Sigh....no one is going to write a program preventing img files fom being used. No one is ever going to be able to prevent software from being copied. And in the end, the only people that get hurt by copy protection are honest people. I bought West Front by Talonsoft. I participated in Microsoft's beta of Windows 2000 at the university where I work. When the beta program ended, I legally took my copy of W2000 and installed it on my home computer. Guess what? West Front no longer worked. (and a lot of other programs as well) But the original East Front did. The difference between the two? West Front had something called cdilla copy protection that is incompatible with W2000 for God knows what reason. So, to get the program to run, I figured I'd have to disable the CD check, in order to not have W2000 come into contact with the copy protection. It took me 9 days of fumbling around very poorly with a hex editor, and looking up web sites on copy protection (putting up with pop up porn banners that I would rather not have seen) until I was finally able to disable the CD in drive check for a program that I legally own. I had to reinstall West Front 4 times because I buggered things up so badly. Finally, on a version 1.04a West Front, I was able to disable the CD check, but only when it was located on a certain area on the hard drive (shows you what I don't know). So, do I support copy protection? In no way whatsoever. All it will do is cause honest consumers trouble. I've got no doubt that what took me 9 days would have taken one of these hackers a few minutes. All it makes me is less likely to ever buy another Talonsoft product, assuming they would stick with the same copy protection. Same thing goes for Battlefront; I do not want to have to jump through these sorts of hoops to run software that I have purchased. Tom

In the news section of ogr.com when the story broke on January 15th, 1997. At that time, it was named 'Computer Squad Leader', and was to be developed for Avalon Hill. Tom

Fionn; there really isn't too much to worry about for the following reasons; 1) When Combat Mission goes RTM, it will be pirated 2) This version will ship without tcp/ip support. 3) The tcp/ip support patch comes later 4) Pirate don't support what they steal. So, if you challenge someone to a game, and they repeatedly refuse, I think it's safe to draw a conclusion from that. Further, it's very possible that say release version 1.0 PBEM files will be incompatible with rlease version 1.0x PBEM files. As far as I can see it, it's rather Darwinian; the pirates are going to be self removing from the honest community of players. Given the first patch, I think they'll be self invalidating. Tom

Phoenix; yes, I'm serious. We've had three scenarios in the beta demo to evaluate. And while I'm aware that the 'AI' has improved from beta to current, I still don't think it will come close to holding a candle to a human opponent. So, the ability to play against other people is very important for me. And again, yes I know that you can play PBEM. Peronally, as a board wargamer, I prefer head to head play. I've waited for this game since January/97 (check dejanews using tdavie@escape.ca as an author if you want), so a few more months doesn't faze me at all. Tom

Tobruk; yes, I said 'if'. I was probably the lone dissenter on the CM live chat of November 9th who voted on holding off shipment of CM until the live h2h code was incorporated. For me, it's simple; one of the deciding factors is seeing how well I can play IBM-Mac over a lan. Tom

For what it's worth, I'll state that if I buy the game, I fully intend to make a backup copy for myself. If I see it online, I won't download it though, nor would I tell others where they could find it. But I'm stating upfront that I'll make a copy for archival purposes. If anyone has a problem with that....oh well. Tom

It's sad if true. But even sadder, as soon as Combat Mission is RTM, it will be pirated whether anyone likes it or not And cracked so that it works without the CD Tom

What's the point in asking when you *know* it will be done when it's done. AFter all, you can have a piece of **** now, or a damn good game at a later date. BTS can't screw up (or so I assume); so this is why they will take the time to get what they perceive as 'right'. And why would July 1rst be a BS answer? Tom

Captain; in the infamous words of Old salt; plonk! Tom

Civdiv; poking around with a hex editor reveals a lot of files with the phrase 'NT5' embedded in them Various system utilities refer to the final release as NT 5 build 2195 Is it a 'gaming' platform? No, but then what is except consoles? It's more stable than W98/85, which in my opinion makes it a better gaming platform. Your mileage may vary of course. 4 games which a week ago had me cursing at W2000 now work flawlessly since I put in a W2000 certified soundcard. Anyway, to return to the topic at hand, word has it that Voodoo 2&3 native drivers will be out in a few weeks. Tom

Now that I picked up a sound card that was natively supported (the aureal Vortex 2), life has been rosier. It is a much quicker and far mroe stable OS than Win9x *if* you've got the horsepower to run it properly. 2 +ve things I've noticed; 1) Office 2000 is much faster. 2) Cable modem speed is approx 25% quicker (this I don't understand, but W2K dynamically reassigned my subnet mask, which led to an interesting email from my IP ). Ah well, as always what runs runs well. What doesn't I always conclude is a pile of ****. Tom

Nikib: you do *not* want my job. Every 2 or three months, I have to kill a few hundred chickens, gather blood and perform general dissections and so forth. it didn't (and still doesn't) bother me, but I am becoming environmentally sensitized and accquiring quite the set of allergies. Ah, Fionn will know what I mean. Tom Nonetheless, working at a university tends to mean (for me at least) getting free and legal software.

39 and very glad that I earn more than enough money to indulge my stupidities Tom

Safisher, 4 possibilities that I can think of; 1) Go into 'my computer' and turn hardware acceleration for your video card off. See if this helps. Sometimes it does. 2) Under the device mangler, check to see the date of your latest video drivers and compare them with the most recent one's available for your Voodoo. Update if necessary. 3) Switch to W98 4) Try DirectX 7.0a or 7.1a Myself, I'd try option 1 or 2 as they're the least troublesome. Hope this helps. Tom